Raw flowers!

At 5am this morning I was close to seventh heaven as the sun had just started to appear over the hills at the end of the Dalveen Pass, I'd been driving on a deserted road for half-an-hour and the last three songs on the radio had been "I'm Into Something Good", "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" and then (can you believe it?), "All Along The Watchtower". Sublime.
And I was off to do something I'd never done before, which was buy flowers wholesale from the Glasgow Fruit and Vegetable Market at Blochairn. Having found it (just past the huge Gas Cylinders) in unprepossessing industrial-estate-land, I drove into a place where not one vehicle obeyed even basic traffic laws and little fork-lift trucks dodged inbetween the ensuing mayhem. Luckily, a little fork-lift truck driver jumped out at my attempt at an endearing smile and directed me to a flower wholesaler, Johnston and Scott. Who saw me coming, in every sense.
However, I reckon I still did better than I would have done at a florist, and on the big plus side I blagged my way into a florists' wholesalers on the strength of my reflexology business card and got all my mechanics. So yippee.
So after a brief breakfast at Bothwell Services it was back on the road and then all the flowers got taken to the Church for the horrendous job of conditioning, the start of which took me 4 hours. I now have R.S.I. from stripping leaves from the carnations and chrysanthemums (there's a reason they're cheapest).
D-Day is Saturday, so now the military planning for the Invasion of Normandy begins. And there's no school tomorrow. Nightmare. And work!
So here's some of the raw flowers plus the campaign plan. Wednesday = foliage sourcing, cutting and conditioning, Thursday = arranging (with 5* General M. Harvey) (the Eisenhower of Penpont Flower Show).
And I can photojournalise the lot!

Church is very dark!